Excessively Excessive
The game industry has become obsessed with the idea of "more".
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The game industry has become obsessed with the idea of "more".
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Excessively Excessive
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
Arbitrary quantification of complex creative ideas. And to think there's a whole website that you linked to that's devoted to the dreamcrushers. It's mindnumbingly stupid. Like TV Tropes level stupid.
Yahtzee, I was hoping for this debate to be over so we can start being immature again.
DOn't diss the Great, all Powerful God Tv Tropes!subtlefuge said:
That bechdel test is fucking stupid, and so is basically every test that measures the worth of any movie, game, song, or book.
I'm actually really interested in seeing where the gaming industry goes from here. They can't continue the road of excess they've followed since the first home console, because this generation has already become too bloated for its own good. So it's either sink or swim in a new direction.
I'm actually really interested in seeing where the gaming industry goes from here. They can't continue the road of excess they've followed since the first home console, because this generation has already become too bloated for its own good. So it's either sink or swim in a new direction.
No, because that's not the point of The Bechdel Test. It's not some kind of gold star that makes a work of fiction magically feminist or a banner example of equality. There are plenty of works that pass the test and still portray women poorly, and there are many that fail the test that have excellent portrayals of female characters.SpiderJerusalem said:
The Bechdel Test is a simple rough measure of how well-developed female characters in fiction are, how relevant they are to the plot, and how important they are in the setting. Much like body-mass index (BMI) is a simple, effective way of checking rates of obesity across large populations, but can be inaccurate when applied to individuals. If everything a female character says or does exists only in relation to male characters, and this happens in, say, 90% of works of fiction, that's a problem. The fact that a single work fails the Bechdel Test isn't a problem. The fact that so many do is.
You've been keeping count on their views and comments?Jove said:
Extra Punctuation's always been rather more down-to-earth and serious than Zero Punctuation. Sometimes it's funnier than other times, but it's usually more on point than trying to max out on jokes along the way. I don't see that as a problem.
But that's kinda like saying that measuring the size of a head is a rough measurement of brain capacity and or intelligence.Falseprophet said:
As you said, it's not the problem that a single work fails the Bechdel Test. But it's a problem that there are works that PASS the Bechdel Test that don't have well-developed female characters. The more than moderate margin of error in either direction makes the thing useless
You miss a couple of important points. Firstly, stereotyped representations are common in video games (snarling, muscle-bound men with big swords are as familiar as ass-wiggling women), and secondly, one of the biggest problems with the depiction of women relates to the lack of women working in the industry (more women actually working on games would likely result in less stupid depictions of women.)
As an aside, the comment, "it's always difficult to rid ourselves of such basic, instinctual things, in the same way human beings will probably never shake off instinctual racism," is so mind-numbingly ignorant that it's almost beneath contempt.
As an aside, the comment, "it's always difficult to rid ourselves of such basic, instinctual things, in the same way human beings will probably never shake off instinctual racism," is so mind-numbingly ignorant that it's almost beneath contempt.
SHHHH!!!subtlefuge said:
You must be careful of what you say, it might just happen... oh, wait... thats Rule 34. NVM.
I still think people over react to this issue.
Big tits, explosions, gunfire and one liners don't happen in my day to day life, i play games and watch movies to escape, to have fun.
Shamelessly promoting something via sex is questionable, but in the end do those products matter?
We'll remember Half-Life, Assassins Creed, Mario and Zelda, but not Dead or Alive: Extreme... At least not for being a worthwhile experience.
Big tits, explosions, gunfire and one liners don't happen in my day to day life, i play games and watch movies to escape, to have fun.
Shamelessly promoting something via sex is questionable, but in the end do those products matter?
We'll remember Half-Life, Assassins Creed, Mario and Zelda, but not Dead or Alive: Extreme... At least not for being a worthwhile experience.
I've gotta say, I've only recently heard of the Bechdel Test being used in this regard, and I can agree it's stupid.SpiderJerusalem said:
The whole idea of the Bechdel test isn't to "rate" a movie, it was originally just an observation that women don't often get a lot of major roles in films.
And let's face it, that's doubly true for games. I can probably count the number of female protagonists in things I've played recently on one hand, and still have the fingers to factor in gender-optional characters.
It's not necessarily a comment on how feminist something is, but hey, the more female characters we have, the more chance there is to get them done right yeah?